Following a rollercoaster 18 months, Ariana Grande has poured ‘Sweetener’ into the musical landscape.
The set, which serves as her fourth studio offering, is her first body of work since the 2017 bombing that took place at the Manchester stop of her ‘Dangerous Woman Tour.’ An incident that saw 22 lives lost.
Helmed largely by Pharrell Williams, the collection was preceded by singles ‘No Tears Left To Cry’ and ‘God Is A Woman.’ Features on the 15-song set include Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott.
So how it shaping up retail? The first week predictions are in and hold the answer.
Head below for more…
According to Hits Daily Double, Ari is on-course to open with…
200,000-225,000
[Sales Plus Streaming]
********
110,000-125,000
[Pure Sales]
Should the numbers hold, ‘Sweetener’ will deliver Grande’s second-highest opening. As at writing, her biggest debut is 2014’s ‘My Everything’ – which bowed with 244,000.
![Chart Check [Hot 100]: 'Defying Gravity' - The Week's BIGGEST-Selling New Song - Is Now Cynthia Erivo's Highest-Charting Hit](https://thatgrapejuice.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cynthia-erivo-thatgrapejuice-hot-100-billboard-200-gravity-defying-wicked-soundtrack-464x260.webp "Chart Check [Hot 100]: 'Defying Gravity' - The Week's BIGGEST-Selling New Song - Is Now Cynthia Erivo's Highest-Charting Hit.")
![Chart Check [Billboard 200]: 'Tortured Poets' Makes Historic Return to #1 as Taylor Swift Wrapped Her Record-Breaking 'Eras Tour' with $2B in Ticket Sales](https://thatgrapejuice.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Taylor-Swift-thatgrapejuice-2024-ttpd-tortured-poets-billboard-200-no-1-eras-tour-2-billion-464x260.jpg "Chart Check [Billboard 200]: 'Tortured Poets' Makes Historic Return to #1 as Taylor Swift Wrapped Her Record-Breaking 'Eras Tour' with $2B in Ticket Sales.")
![Preview: CBS Unleashes 'An Evening with Dua Lipa' TV Special Sneak Peek [Watch]](https://thatgrapejuice.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/dua-lipa-december-primetime-cbs-evening-special-elton-john-2024-thatgrapejuice-1-464x260.jpg "Preview: CBS Unleashes 'An Evening with Dua Lipa' TV Special Sneak Peek [Watch].")
![TV Trailer: ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ [Season 9 / Episode 11]](https://thatgrapejuice.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/rhop-karen-huger-tgj-464x260.jpg "TV Trailer: ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ [Season 9 / Episode 11].")
Wow compared to Nicki’s 50K pure sales. Nicki can’t even sit with Ariana yet alone Bey and Rih. Poor dat!!!
Her pure sales is over 80,000.
Girl her sales went up to 80K pure sales because she was adding everything to win, and still came up short! ????
You should not be using Aretha’s name in vein to spew your queeny diss about Onika. The legendary singer just passed. Show some respect and have some class.
That’s the problem with this generation of snowflakes – no respect no honor no code.
I was talking to a 16 yr old about music today and she was trying to plug me into “hip” current music, and I told her Kim was the first female rapper to go mainstream with a hypersexualized image, and the 16 yr old goes… “who’s that?” I was like “you know, back then she came out with Biggie, Diddy…” “Who’s Diddy?” “You know, Puff Daddy!” “Who’s Puff Daddy? Why would someone name themselves that? It sounds awful.” CHILE my jaw dropped to the floor!!!! Am I that old???? Right away I’m scrambling to compile a playlist for her.
What were we talking about again?
“Okay, imma pass on that one”
-Aretha
This is the first album ive listened to of hers and im a fan. Its dope. Her voice has progressed in the right direction… She’s the current pop girl and I feel she deserves it…
Her album is sour to me but her sales are sweet. Keep in mind the music standards has been set to an all time low so mediocrity is popular. I can name a few more Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Rihanna, mumble rappers ad infinitum. So good for her!
Nokia fIopped tho
Sis has merchandise + album bundles too, just like Travis did so they’re def helping benfit her sales too
But Nicki was giving everything away, adding songs she’s featured on to get her streams up, merchandise+bundles, posters, Selling her new cd for $5, a Tidal 3 month subscription, scholarships, pusssy, you name it! And still came up short! ???????????
DiDnt Ariana add Bang Bang on her last album & didn’t Monica add Boy is Mine on her her album back in the day? Travis literally gave away $100k just to get ppl to buy his album & had hella deals & bundles on his site too but ain’t nobody saying nun. Nobody is selling in pure sales like they use to thanks to streaming. Not to mention her album went on sale 12 hours later then it wasn’t suppose to.
@ king barb the difference is she added ‘FeFe’ in the middle of the week to an album that wasn’t going to include it until she saw the sales predictions. And yea Travis added bundles and merchandise but the difference is that in his case it worked to get extraordinary numbers.
Having said that the ‘Queen’ album is actually pretty good.
Nicki def should have added FEFE & all the merchandise bundles from the beginning cuz it def would’ve made a bigger difference. She also should have been tryna get drake on a track & went on tour with him instead of future. Queen is def her best body of work though lyrically
Lol noone is out flopping Nikki. Lol Not in 2018 ?
STfu ain’t nobody flipped if anybody flopped is IGGY! But ain’t nobody talking bout that though smh
lmaooo your fat ass seems to forget that everything is FLOPPED flopped even harder in both sales and streams lmfaooo????
True. Everything is Love is the biggest flop of 2018. No contest. Beyonce needs to come harder (she is not a rapper), and I don’t care about Jay-Z at all. -_-
I listened last night I was not a fan at all. I liked the direction on her first album better. Pharrell did not give her his best work by a long shot.
Her streaming numbers are high. Means people are curious about her new album much more than they are about Onika’s.
Ok Grande!!! I see a number #1 album in the making! Congratulations mama!
Borderline sounds like a leftover from 702’s star album and I love it. This is the first album of hers that I have listened to and I like what pharrell brought to this project.
outselling Bey and Jay joint album, go Ari!!!
lmao so what she outsold nicki but guess what? she also outsold camel & the roach and that MEGAFLOP everything is FLOPPED, so suck on that fvckers lmfaooooo ? ?? ?
The Carter’s are middle aged tho not new. Continue to SEETH as you watch the king and queen perform APESHIT in full to SOLD OUT STADIUM
https://youtu.be/7YI463bxons
When will piRIHanna out gross THE CARTERS in tour?
Keep Rihanna out your fat mouth ! Rih has sold out many stadiums and was the youngest to do so several times so sit fattie this has nothing to do with Queen Rih !
lmaooo keep your excuses roaches, camel and his pet roach FLOPPED harder than Nicki ever will and that’s FACT. giving away free tickets in stadium parking lots ain’t gonna change that lmfaooooo ? ?? ?
If they would’ve promoted it or had tour & merchandise bundles like everybody else it would be selling high too. Clearly it’s just a lil mixtape to go along with the tour to tide ppl over til Bey’s 7th solo album coming next year
Stop making excuses. This is supposedly the King of rap and the Queen B and the album flopped.
lmaooo first it was an EP, now its a mixtape. Lmfaooooo I can’t with the excuses! It’s a FLOPPED ALBUM, deal with it lmfaooooo ? ?? ?
If Bey and Jay’s album was a flop then so is Nicki’s.
lmaooo roach and camel are bigger FLOPS in both sales and streams lmfaooooo ? ?? ?
And to think people were accusing Nicki of wanting to steal Ariana’s shine by initially moving the release date to August 17. Sorry to say but it seems Nicki wouldn’t have debuted at #1 with this particular album regardless of when she released.
Lol my day would have officially been made if Nikki and Ariana Grande dropped same day. Imagine The meltdowns and excuses for a #3 Debut. ?
lmaooo but roach and camel were blocked and FLOPPED by a boy band, did that make your day chubbo?? lmfaooooo ? ?? ?
My Everything sold 169,000 in its first week, not 244,000
I’m kinda disappointed, ‘Sweetener’ has good songs, I love ‘Breathin’, but ‘Dangerous Woman’ continues to be her best body of work, she has bop after bop after bop.
Ariana makes pop magic with Max Martin, Pharrell needs to sit the next one out.
OMG so this means Ari is a bigger artist than Nicki now?
WTF Nicki really fell off.
–
Remy Ma really f’d up her career and putting her own career (comeback) in the pits too.
And Cardi B was the FINISHER!
HASHTAG: #IamLIVING
As a fan of Tinashe, you have no room to be talking about anyone’s album numbers.
A flop especially for a newish artist who is literally everywhere publicity wise
Well, everyone is waiting on GapTheScenes rundown so;
She is managed well – thats whats up. Her team are really cementing her as a commercial pop princess to this gerenation ala Christina and
britney of the last generations.
This is perfect and i appluad her management team, so many artists are trying to hard to be current and newage and “Authentic” but forgeting about cashing in on the pop, wholesome (frankly white) demographic of yesteryear.
Althoug hhr songs may not ruminate with “thatgrapejuice” readers the tracks and visuals are very commercially strong and will cement and expand her fanbase.
She serving music to her fans which many have forgot in todays industry.
#Shecanstay #NoNeedToGapIt
People will always have something negative to say – after all, which artist always satisfies ALL their fans AND casual listeners? As a casual listener it’s clear from the metaphoric upside down cover (her world has been turned upside down after the terror attacks) to the song titles ‘NMTLTC’ (have cried to the point where she must move on) to the lyrics on ‘Breathing’ (advice given to help her through the post traumatic stress of the terror attacks) and the overall mid tempo vibe of the album – Ariana Grande is a Pop Star battling depression.
Yes it was a mistake to let Pharell produce so much of the album, because he’s not been poppin’ in a LONG time and the tracks end up just sound like filler and even less substance than usual.
For the artist she is – there’s a lack of anthemic fun Pop (I’m So Into U, Bang Bang, One Last Time, Break Free etc) because she can’t carry songs that aren’t high on melodies and Pop hooks. Even the standout album tracks are missing (Leave Me Lonely, I Don’t Care, Only 1, Be My Baby)
She’ll really need to mix her discography if she tours because this album is quiet sombre. A long essay perhaps but I see people coming for her without seeing the elephant in the room. ??
Most of the album is talking about s** though….
Her first week sales have been pretty much in the same range consistently for all her albums, so these numbers are good but not spectacular.
That’s her problem trying to be apart of Nicki Minaj failing chart topper!!